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Volume V, Issue 2, February 2009 THE MONTHLY MAGAZINE ON POSITIONING, NAVIGATION AND BEYOND

Skybridge-Telesaurus C-HALO Comments herein.

1. Why GPS-GNSS needs to be augmented for high-accuracy Intelligent or Smart


Transport, Energy and Environment (and other Applications), and

2. Why N-RTK is needed for this augmentation (see also the C-HALO papers on
Scribd) and why it needs the C-HALO planned dedicated, licensed, wide-area secure
wireless stems as its foundation.

The dangers of
GPS/GNSS

February 2009 | 
colophon and contents

In this issue
Volume 5, Issue 2, February 2009

Articles

The dangers of GPS/GNSS Börje Forssell 6 Challenges before National Mapping Organisations Vanessa
Lawrence CB, P Nag, Lam Joon Khoi 10 Quality evaluation of NRTK correction transmission Lei Yang, Chris
Hill, Xiaolin Meng and Jose Aponte 14 Accuracy performance of hand-held GPS Abdullah S Alsalman and
Abdullah E Ali 27 Geomatics in Pakistan A W Mir 30

Columns
My Coordinates Editorial 5 News Remote Sensing 32 GPS 34 Galileo update 35 LBS 36 GIS 36 Industry 38
Mark your calendar February 2009 to September 2009 42

This issue has been made possible by the support and good wishes of the following individuals and companies Abdullah E
Ali, Abdullah S Alsalman, A W Mir, Börje Forssell, Chris Hill, Jose Aponte, Lam Joon Khoi, Lei Yang, P Nag, Vanessa Lawrence CB,
Xiaolin Meng and Antrix, Hemisphere GPS, Sanding, Magellan, Navcom, NovAtel, NRSA, Spirent, Javad, Leica, South; and many
others

Mailing Address Coordinates is an initiative of cGIT that aims to broaden the Editor Bal Krishna
11C Pocket A scope of positioning, navigation and related technologies.
SFS Mayur Vihar Phase III cGIT does not neccesarily subscribe to the views expressed Owner Centre for Geoinformation Technologies
Delhi 110 096, India. by the authors and advertisers in this magazine and may not
Phones +91 11 22632607, 98102 33422, 98107 24567 be held liable for any losses caused directly or indirectly due Designed at Thomson Press India Ltd.
Fax +91 11 22632607 to the information provided herein. © cGIT, 2009. Reprinting
with permission is encouraged; contact the editor for details. Printer Thomson Press India Ltd., B 315, Okhla Phase I,
Email New Delhi-110020, India
[information]talktous@mycoordinates.org Annual subscription (12 issues) [India] Rs.1,200
[editorial]bal@mycoordinates.org [Overseas] US$80 This issue of Coordinates is of 44 pages, including
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[subscriptions]iwant@mycoordinates.org Printed and published by Sanjay Malaviya on behalf of Centre
for Geoinformation Technologies at A221 Mangal
 | February 2009
Web www.mycoordinates.org Apartments, Vasundhara Enclave, Delhi 110096, India.
GNSS

The dangers of GPS/GNSS


The problem is that nothing works 100 %. GPS is very close, but for some
users under some circumstances, “very close” is not good enough

Professor Börje Forssell


Norwegian University of
Science and Technology,
G NSS (Global Navigation Satellite
Systems) is a common acronym
encompassing all existing and planned
discussion. In not too distant a future,
even better numbers can be expected.

Dept. of Electronics and satellite-based navigation systems. So far, PDOP Availability: Requirement
Telecommunications, the US-built GPS dominates the scene - PDOP of 6 or less, 98% of the
Trondheim, Norway completely, but the Russian GLONASS time or better; Actual - 99.98%.
borje.forssell@iet.ntnu.no is approaching around-the-clock global
operational status, and other systems are Horizontal Service Availability:
being developed (the European Galileo, the Requirement - 95% threshold of
Chinese Compass/Beidou and the Indian 36 metres, 99% of the time or
IRNSS). There are also augmentation better; Actual – 3.7 metres.
systems of more or less operational
status (the US WAAS, the European Vertical Service Availability: Requirement
EGNOS, the Japanese MSAS and the - 95% threshold of 77 metres, 99% of
Indian GAGAN). Satellite navigation the time or better; Actual – 5.3 metres.
is becoming part of everyday life, user
equipments are becoming cheaper, smaller, User Range Error: Requirement
easier to handle and with increasingly - 6 metres or less; Constellation
improved performance. This development Average Actual - 1.2 metres.
is expected to continue for the foreseeable
future with receivers in mobile phones and
cars as dominating markets (Figs. 1-3). What’s the problem?
The following discussion for obvious The problem is that nothing works
reasons mostly refers to GPS, but the 100 %. GPS is very close, but for
[Car navigation already the arguments are generally valid for all some users under some circumstances,
main use, and dominating in global navigation satellite-based systems. “very close” is not good enough. The
commercial wireless devices situation in general is as follows:
also.]
Actual performance • Most GPS users know nothing about
GPS vulnerability.
Today’s average performance of GPS • Most users don’t care.
is used as a starting point for our • Most GPS users can stand some
Fig. 1. GPS users in 2006 interruptions or performance reduction.
Manufacturing • Most politicians and representatives of
7% authorities in the field of navigation
don’t know of GPS vulnerability.
Tracking • Back-up systems are being
10% closed down (e.g. LORAN-C), and
Aviation
Vessel voyage Hand held there is little or no contact between
4%
2% 26% different countries about these matters.

Military affairs GPS (and all satellite navigation systems,


1% more or less) are vulnerable because of

GIS Survey • Very low signal power received;


8% 7% • A few frequencies (in the GPS case
today, only one for general use) and a
Car navigation
known signal structure;
35%

6 | Coordinates February 2009


• Spectrum competition; • All GPS/GNSS receivers in critical • Unintentional interference:
• Worldwide military applications drive applications must provide a timely
a GPS disruption industry; warning when the signals are • Radio-frequency interference
• Jamming techniques are degraded or lost; (RFI) from external sources
well known, devices are available, • Development of certifiable, (spectrum congestion,
or can be built easily (fig. 4). integrated (multipurpose) receivers harmonics, high-power
should be encouraged; signals saturating receiver front
In 2001 (just before the infamous 9/11), the • A comprehensive analysis of GPS/ ends);
U.S. Department of Transportation’s Volpe GNSS back-up navigation and • Testing at system level;
National Transportation Systems Center precise timing options (e.g. LORAN, • Ionospheric influence
published results from an investigation VOR/DME, ILS, INS) and operating (solar maxima, magnetic storms,
into the vulnerability of the transportation procedures should be conducted. scintillations);
infrastructure relying on GPS. Conclusions [This is part of the U. California, Skybridge• Multipath.
to be drawn from that investigation are: funded C-HALO Cost-Benefit
Causes of trouble study: google to • Intentional interference:
find that.]
• Awareness should be created in the
navigation and timing communities There are many possible reasons for • Jamming;
of the need for back-up systems or degraded performance or service • Spoofing (false signals into the
operational procedures; interruption for users of GNSS: receiver);
• All transportation modes should be • Meaconing (interception and
encouraged to pay attention to • Satellite or control- re-broadcast of navigation
autonomous integrity monitoring of segment malfunctions. signals).
GPS/GNSS signals;
• Human factors:

• User equipment and satellite


design errors;
• Over-reliance;
• Lack of knowledge
and/or training.
[& lack of accurate digital maps]
The main technical explanation of GNSS
receiver vulnerabilities to external
interference can be summarised as very
low power received from the satellites.
Fig. 2. Experienced and expected use of GPS/GNSS in cars The minimum power level is usually
between -150 and -160 dBW. Looking
at the details for GPS, we see that

• acquisition requires 6 – 10 dB higher


signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) than
tracking,
• loss-of-lock sometimes occurs for
interference-to-signal ratios
(I/S) below 30 dB,
• receiver detection of loss-of-lock
is delayed because of narrowband
Fig. 3. Experienced and expected use of GPS/GNSS in mobile phones code-tracking loops,
• some lines in the GPS C/A-code
spectrum are more vulnerable
than others because of higher
power levels (Gold code spectra
do not exactly follow a sinc shape,
and spectral lines work as
local oscillator frequencies for
received interference signals),
• modulated interference is generally

Fig. 4. This dice is a 10 mW GPS jammer. Fig. 5. Example of a car navigation problem.
Coordinates February 2009 | 7
worse than white noise, and narrow- continuously for 4.5 days. There were LORAN) can be very useful in case
band interference is worse than several impacts to ATC operations of satellite signal malfunctioning.
wide-band. during the six days of jamming: Such integration can also be efficient
against interference and jamming.
• Aircraft lost GPS 45 nm from
Recorded examples Phoenix, performed a 35° turn toward Other countermeasures against all kinds
of GPS troubles traffic; of external interference are filtering and
• NOTAM was not issued until 2nd advanced signal processing, including
During the long (and ― don’t forget! ― day; adaptive antennas and null-steering.
usually very successful) history of GPS, • numerous pilots reported loss of GPS;
a number of satellite malfunctions and • There were reports of hand- A question which is often asked is
interference problems have been recorded. held GPS receivers not working. whether upcoming systems (Galileo,
Taking the record of April – August of INRSS, etc.) will solve the problem.
the year 2005 for examples of satellite The answer is that they will reduce the
malfunctions, we find the following: Time users problem but not solve it completely.

• SVN37 (PRN7): 3 Apr – Load-shed; Users of GPS as a time and/or frequency


• SVN31 (PRN31): 14 Apr – Baseband reference are an often forgotten Satellite navigation
reset; or unknown but very important problems in cars
• SVN27 (PRN27): 14 May – part of the GPS community. Some
Rubidium #1 runoff leads to clock applications where GPS time is used: Drivers using car navigation equipment
swap; experience problems fairly often
• SVN26 (PRN26): 9 Jun – Rubidium • Navigation; (Fig. 5). Due to lack of knowledge,
#1 clock jump; • Telecommunications; these problems are often wrongly
• SVN15 (PRN15): 22 Jun – • Digital broadcasting; ascribed to the satellite system instead
Comparator Reference Value Change; • Power generation and of to the real cause, the map system.
• SVN32 (PRN1): 24 Jul – Load-shed; distribution; (In fact, a lot of users call their car
• SVN26 (PRN26): 21 Aug • Metrology; navigator “my GPS”). A summary of
– Crypto Variable Upload. • Meteorology; these problems might be written:
• Radar;
Experienced jamming and other records • Tests and measurements • Satellite-based car-navigation
of intentional interference are (for • Time tagging (Internet and equipment attracts negative
obvious reasons) less available, but transport) attention for doing a job logically…
unintentional interference examples are • Time-of-day distribution. but unintelligently;
abundant. Let us look at just two of them. • Expectations for such equipment are
Many users of these applications high – expected to be smarter than the
An infamous example is Moss Landing in are crucially dependent on GPS for driver (which-in fact-it often is!);
California. From May 2001 and several their systems to work properly. • Road classification
months onward, no use of commercial is difficult – one person’s farm
GPS receivers was possible in the whole track is another’s handy shortcut.
harbour area out to a distance at sea of Countermeasures [More accurage digital maps needed
at least one kilometer. After the first along most roads, etc.
user reports about GPS unavailability, If satellite signals do not meet Conclusions and
considerable efforts were launched to find requirements, the only thing users can recommendations
the source of the interfering signal(s). do is to acquire information about the
Finally, it was discovered that there were malfunction(s) from other sources as All GNSS users must evaluate and
in fact three sources, all of them being quickly as possible. Such information analyse their own situation:
active UHF/VHF TV antennas with acquisition is called integrity monitoring.
preamplifiers onboard pleasure boats. It can be receiver autonomous (RAIM) What would be the consequences
or received from external wide-area in case of GNSS problems?
In December the same year, a GPS augmentation sources (e.g. WAAS,
jammer caused GPS failures within EGNOS, MSAS, GAGAN) or from If the answer is ‘no serious consequences’,
180 nautical miles of Mesa, Arizona. local monitors (GBAS = Ground- then “business as usual”.
Boeing was preparing for upcoming Based Augmentation Systems).
tests and accidentally left a jammer But if there are possible serious
on the L1 frequency, radiating just Integration of GNSS receiving equipment consequences, users must
0.8 mW. The jammer operated with other sensors (e.g. inertial systems, prepare for the unexpected !

8 | Coordinates February 2009


POSITIONING [Skybridge-
Telesaurus C-HALO
notes herein.

Quality evaluation of NRTK - W. Havens ]

correction transmission
The paper investigates the quality variation of the NRTK correction
transmission, and reveals its influence on the positioning solution

G
Lei Yang
NSS positioning/navigation devices between the receiver and a reference
Research Fellow IESSG
are rapidly merging into and station with known high-accuracy
University of Nottingham
changing our modern lives, just like the position, spatially correlated errors can
United Kingdom
personal computer in the 1980’s and the be removed, and positioning accuracy
lei.yang@nottingham.ac.uk
cellular phone in the 1990’s. It is predicted can be improved from tens of meters
that by 2012, the annual shipment of (Stand Alone mode) to centimetre level.
navigation devices will increase to over
65 million units, which is more than three The limitation of traditional RTK is that
Dr Chris J Hill times the 19.8 million shipped in 2006 [1]. some distance-dependent errors (such
Principal Research IESSG Also in a situation personal computer and as ionosphere delay) will increase with
University of Nottingham cellular phone ever faced, a higher standard the increasing length of the baseline
United Kingdom service demand has been placed in front between the rover and the reference
of the GNSS technology, and becoming station. Normally for an implementation
a bottleneck before its potential mass with centimetre-level accuracy
market can be exploited. More precisely, at requirement, the baseline length should
present, real time and high accuracy are the not be more than 20km [2]. For national
Dr Xiaolin Meng two major concerns for many promising GNSS applications, this limitation
Research Councils UK commercial GNSS plans, such as Road would result in a dense reference
Academic Fellow at the IESSG Pricing and Intelligent Transportation station network and considerable
Professor of Wuhan Systems Services (ITSS) [2]. investment in infrastructure.
University and Mapping
For these high demand applications, Real- To overcome this constraint, NRTK
Time Kinematic (RTK) positioning is one was developed in recent years. In a
of the most significant solutions and has NRTK GNSS facility, a central data
been widely tested and commercialized in server collects the raw observations
Jose Aponte
many countries [3-5]. Its latest evolving from a number of reference stations,
PhD student at the IESSG,
trend has been leading in the Network and sends corrections to a rover
the University of Nottingham
RTK (NRTK) direction. NRTK technology positioning terminal after carrying out
can remove spatially correlated errors and an integrated processing. The rover
effectively mitigate distance-dependent then combines these corrections with
errors in the GNSS measurements, and its local carrier phase observations,
achieve a centimetre-level positioning to obtain a high accuracy real time
solution [6]. In such a high accuracy real positioning solution. The architecture
time system, reliable and high-speed of NRTK system is shown in Figure 1.
server-rover communication (i.e. correction
message transmission) plays an important In a NRTK implementation, through
role in the final performance. Our work the interpolation of corrections from a
will investigate the quality variation of the set of reference stations, the distance-
NRTK correction transmission, and reveal dependent errors are mitigated and
its influence on the positioning solution. the high-accuracy solution can be
achieved in a much greater area than a
traditional RTK implementation. The
NRTK background separation between the NRTK reference
Figure 1: Network RTK system architecture
which consists of a network reference stations
stations can be extended to 100km
(left), central processing facility (middle) and In the traditional RTK technology, by [7], which means only 600 stations
the user groups (right) differencing the carrier phase observables could cover the whole European area.

14 | Coordinates February 2009


[ Skybridge-Telesaurus C-HALO will provide the wireless to meet all these needs nationwide:
"large, full, wide, IP supporting, no-charge, no-end-user license, and dedicatged.]

Data dissemination Currently both public Internet and using the setup as shown in Figure 2
GPRS can provide high-quality in a research lab within the Institute of
Much research in NRTK technology has services. However, these services are Engineering Surveying and Space Geodesy
focused on the efficiency and effectiveness not guaranteed. RTK data does not (IESSG) in the University of Nottingham.
of the reference stations measurement have any priority on these channels, The tests were carried out in a static NRTK
usage, through improving models although it is quite time-sensitive. mode with a GNSS antenna fixed on a
(especially for the ionosphere model) and During the transmission, frequent route precisely measured point to minimize
the data processing technique to reduce switching, channel congestion in peak- the influence from irrelevant factors.
the number of stations and cost. When a time and even any faulty from the service
network is getting sparse, the length of data provider’s equipment might cause the The whole system can be separated
communication will extend accordingly. RTK messages to be delayed or lost. into three sections: Data Source, Data
In the meantime, due to the rapid change [As depicted, none of the wireless has all Dissemination Route and Data User. In the
of the satellite geometry and also the needed elements. What is needed wide- data source section, a dedicated RTK GPS
atmospheric conditions, the correction Evaluation System area, dedicated network established jointly by the IESSG
messages from the data server have a mission-critical grade wireless.] and the Leica Geosystems is utilized. This
time-limited validity. Thus the challenge To study the impacts of these transmission network consists of 14 high grade geodetic
for NRTK data dissemination is to keep a variations, parallel tests were conducted GNSS station sites and covers an area of
reliable and high speed wide-bandwidth
service in a long distance transmission. Type of Comm. Radio Cellular Satellite Wi-Fi
The variations during the correction Range short large large very short
data transmission, i.e. message delay Coverage line of sight nearly full full limited
and loss, may increase with the increase
Bandwidth Wide Wide/limited limited Wide
of the baseline and eventually degrade
the high accuracy solution. Therefore IP supporting no yes yes yes
the quality of the RTK correction data Service charge no medium high low
dissemination should be taken seriously. Licensing required [N/A] no no no
reliability dedicated not guaranteed Exclusive not guaranteed
The RTK data transmission channel is service
a combination of cable connection and Table 1: Comparison of Different Correction Dissemination Approaches
wireless connection. In terms of the
cable connection part, public Internet
is the dominating choice. In 2003 an
application-level protocol, Network
Transport of RTCM via Internet Protocol
(NTRIP) was developed by the Federal
Agency for Cartography and Geodesy
(BKG), Germany [8]. It is dedicated to
streaming GNSS data over the Internet.
The data server of a RTK network is both
a TCP/IP server and an NTRIP caster.

In terms of the wireless connection part,


there are several available transmission
Figure 2: Evaluation System Design
methods which can be utilized for NRTK
positioning [9]. Table 1 includes the
comparison of the major features of these
methods and it can be concluded that only
commercial cellular communication and
satellite communication can be used in
the large area applications. Comparing
these two methods, the former has great
economic and practical predominance
at the current stage. Among the various
mobile networks in today’s market, the
GPRS (EDGE) and 3G network are the
best options [10] and the former has a
further advantage in the service coverage.

Figure 3 Data latency and corresponding horizontal and vertical errors;


Blue : Benchmark solution, Red: GPRS + Long Distance solution Coordinates February 2009 | 15
~20,000 km2 in the Midlands region in the the receiver and the NRTK server and sent back to the receiver. The public
UK. The raw observations from these site is only tens of meters long, and can Internet link used here is over 2000km
servers were sent to an NTRIP caster in simulate an ideal transmission link. long. This scenario is designed to simulate
the central data processing centre, which This transmission is assumed to have a rigorous cabled connection environment.
is located in the IESSG. Professional zero message loss and delay, and The last configuration is a combination of
NRTK software Leica Spider v3.0 was is used as a benchmark to compare the second and third setting, i.e. a long-
adopted to organize the raw data, generate with the other three transmissions. distance public Internet plus a GPRS
correction data for any receiver request link. The RTK data is sent to the remote
and disseminate the correction messages The second configuration is through a NTRIP caster in Helsinki and sent back to
in the Radio Technical Commission for commercial GPRS link, where the receiver the receiver via a commercial GPRS link,
Maritime services (RTCM) format. communicates to the NRTK server via which can represent a typical commercial
a dedicated cellular modem. The third NRTK correction transmission.
In the data dissemination section, four configuration is through a long-distance
different transmission scenarios are public Internet link. In this scenario the In the data user section in Figure 2,
considered. The first one is through RTK data is relayed via a remote NTRIP a geodetic Leica 1200 receiver was
a short local Ethernet link, in which caster which is located at the Finnish employed. Its outputs are provided in
case the cabled connection between Geodetic Institute (FGI), Helsinki, Finland, NMEA $GPGGA format at 20Hz and are
logged by a PC. Besides the positioning
solution, the data latency, or the “age of
correction” (i.e. the elapsed time from the
time of the latest RTK correction to the
time of the current solution made [11])
is available in the GGA sentence and can
be used to determine the message delay.

To avoid the influence of irrelevant factor,


the parallel tests are carried out at the
same time, and utilizing the same type of
receivers, sharing a common GPS antenna
and keeping all the same configurations
except the transmission methods. Therefore
differences between the benchmark and the
other three solutions are only caused by the
transmission variation. Also, although the
Figure 4 Distribution of the message delay
solutions are made in the RTK mode, all
the tests are carried out as static, to avoid
Message Delay (sec) Message
the unnecessary kinematic disturbance.
Average Std. Loss
Benchmark 0 0.03 0%
GPRS 0.44 0.24 1.1% Data Analysis
Long Distance 0.43 0.34 12.4%
GPRS +Long Distance 0.85 0.45 20.6% Figure 3 illustrates a comparison between
Table 2 Statistics of the message delay and loss the benchmark solution and the solution
via the GPRS combined with the long
<0.5cm 0.5~1 cm >1 cm Std. (cm) distance Internet link, in a 10-second-
Benchmark 89.43% 10.55% 0.03% 0.16 long timeslot. The comparison is made
GPRS 80.93% 18.60% 0.47% 0.18 in terms of the latency, the horizontal
error and the vertical error respectively.
Long Distance 70.53% 27.13% 2.35% 0.24
GPRS + Long Distance 68.09% 29.30% 2.60% 0.25
Because the receiver makes the solutions at
Table 3 Statistic of the horizontal error 20 Hz, the latency will gradually increase
by 0.05 second at each logging point
<1 cm 1~2 cm >2 cm Std. (cm) over the time axis, until a new correction
Benchmark 97.01% 2.98% 0.01% 0.45 message is received, which brings the
GPRS 87.70% 11.90% 0.40% 0.64 latency value back to zero. Therefore the
Long Distance 83.84% 15.50% 0.66% 0.69 height of the triangle shape in the latency
figure can show the receiving time interval
GPRS +Long Distance 82.11% 16.81% 1.09% 0.73
Table 4 Statistic of the vertical error
16 | Coordinates February 2009
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Coordinates February 2009 | 17
between two consecutive messages. In the With increasing message delay and loss, [3] Namie H., NishiKawa K., Sasano
benchmark solution it can be seen that, the receiver may not have the latest RTK K., Fan C. and Yasuda A., 2008,
due to the ideal transmission environment, corrections on time and only can ‘predict’ Development of Network-Based
the messages are received at a nearly the present correction from the past RTK RTK-GPS Positioning System
constant one-second-interval; while in the data [12]. The time-sensitive error will Using FKP via a TV Broadcast
combined link solution, the messages are increase and the positioning solution in Japan, IEEE Transactions on
received at varying intervals, which can will drift away from the true coordinates. Broadcasting, 54(1), pp. 106-111
show that the condition of the transmission In Figure 3, it can clearly be seen that,
route was unstable. It can be seen from during the message-lost period, both the [4] Marel H., 1998, Virtual GPS
the latter solution that there is a triangle horizontal error and the vertical error Reference Stations in the Netherlands,
with a two-second height. This shows are increased and a ‘degradation peak’ is ION GPS’98 Proceedings, pp. 49-58
a message loss in its scheduled time. formed. The statistics of the horizontal
error and the vertical error are shown [5] Kumar M. D., Homer J., Kubik
Because of the delay, the same message in Table 3 and Table 4 respectively. It K. and Higgins M., 2005,
may arrive at different times in two links. can be seen that both the GPRS link and Efficient RTK Positioning by
Accordingly, in the latency chart of Figure the long distance Internet link introduce Integrating Virtual Reference
3, the channel delay results in a separation some ‘degradation peaks’ and degrade the Stations with WCDMA Network,
between the two different colour triangles. positioning solution precision eventually. Journal of Global Positioning
Considering the zero transmission delay Again, the long distance Internet link Systems, 4(1-2), pp. 48-55
in the ideal benchmark solution, this shows a larger influence than the GPRS
separation can determine the message link. Comparing to the benchmark [6] Retscher G. , 2002, Accuracy
transmission delay in the combined solution, the precision of the combined Performance of Virtual Reference
link solution, as marked in the figure. link solution is degraded by 60%. Station (VRS) networks,
Journal of Global Positioning
Statistics of both the message delay and Conclusion Systems, 1(1), pp. 40-47
loss in different solutions are shown in
Table 2. It can be seen that the average This paper presents a study to investigate [7] Fotopoulos G. and Cannon M.
delay of the GPRS and the long distance the quality of the NRTK data transmission E., 2001, An Overview of Multi-
Internet link are at the same level, and the methods. The two transmission Reference Station Methods for
average delay of the combined link is close variations, message delay and loss, Cm-Level Positioning, GPS
to a second (0.85 sec). Both the standard were both observed whilst the GPRS Solutions, 4(3), pp. 1-10
deviation of the message delay and the link and the long distance Internet link
message loss percentage show the stability were used. The combination of the two [8] Radio Technical Commission
of the transmission, where the GPRS link links was shown to have a 0.85 second for Maritime Services, 2003,
is relatively more stable than the long average delay and 20% message loss. Networked Transport of RTCM
distance Internet link, and the combined It is demonstrated that these variations via Internet Protocol Version 1.0,
link is the worst. Comparing to the GPRS might introduce 60% degradation in the RTCM paper 167-203/SC104-315
link, the long distance Internet link suffered precision of the positioning solution
much more message loss, and 20% of the in a static test. When designing a RTK [9] Cruddace P., Wilson I., Greaves
messages were lost in the combining link. network in a large-area, this transmission M., Euler H-J., Keenan R. and
influence should be considered, and as a Wuebbena G., 2002, The Long
Figure 4 shows the distribution of the compensation, a more frequent message Road to Establishing a National
message delay, for the three transmission sending scheme could be considered. Network RTK Solution, 22th
scenarios. The long distance Internet FIG International Congress
link shows a greater spread in the delay
than the GPRS link, due to its larger References [10] Meng X., Dodson A., Moore T.
number of packet switchings during the and Roberts G., 2007, Ubiquitous
transmission. There is no delay higher [1] iSuppli report, 2007, Portable Positioning, GPS World, June
than two seconds in these two links, Navigation Devices Growth
because if a message arrives later than [11] National Marine Electronics
the following message, it will simply be [2] Meng X., Yang L., Aponte J., Hill Association, 1998, NMEA 0183
rejected by the receiver and will be treated C., Moore T. and Dodson A., 2008, Standard for Interfacing Marine
as a message loss. The combined link Development of Satellite Based Electronic Devices Version 2.30
does have a small percentage of message Positioning and Navigation Facilities
delays higher than two seconds, because for Precise ITS Applications, the 11th [12] Leica Geosystems, 2007, GPS
the following message may also not arrive International IEEE Conference on 1200 Technical Reference
on time due to its rigorous environment. Intelligent Transportation Systems Manual Version 1.1

18 | Coordinates February 2009

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